Heading into Enemy territory

The Daily Mail has got it wrong. Not all under-25s are crack-smoking, knife-wielding, hoodie-wearing vermin who ought to be rounded up like cattle and shot like pigs.

“We did a gig the other day in The Kingfisher in Corby, which has a reputation for being a bit of a rough town, and the police thinking they were going to have a fucking field day were on the door with seven sniffer dogs,” explains Tom Clarke, The Enemy’s super-friendly guitarist and singer. “They didn’t find any drugs out of the 200 people who went in, which I thought was absolutely amazing. The police looked really pissed-off that they weren’t able to arrest anybody.”
The hapless mutts in question no doubt being sent to their kennels without Bonio. Did Tom get sniffed personally?
“No, I managed to escape ‘em. I would’ve been alright though ‘cause I’ve never really got into drugs. I find life interesting enough without taking a pill. Liam and Andy would be the same.”
We’re just about to get on to the Hedonistic Rock Stars Club and tell them to cancel The Enemy’s membership when he adds: “I’m not going to sit here and say ‘don’t do it’ ‘cause some of the world’s great artistic feats have been achieved whilst using drugs. If people get a buzz out of doing it, then they should. I get a buzz out of riding a motorbike fast, which also has the potential to kill you.”
What’s Tom doing his ton-up on at the moment?
“It’s a shitty little thing, but it really shifts,” he laughs. “I’ve also got a deathtrap of a Lambretta, which I shouldn’t be riding but there you go. My mum used to be a biker, so it’s in the genes.”
Not having half the crowd carted off in handcuffs beforehand wasn’t the only thing that Tom enjoyed about The Enemy’s Corby gig.
“The Kingfisher is a flat-roof, carpeted pub on the edge of a housing estate. We took our own P.A. in and had to climb over the crowd to get off the stage – well, there wasn’t a stage, but you know what I mean. We love doing little venues like that where it’s just you, the mic and the people in the front-row a foot away. Andy took five minutes to beat the local record on the punch machine, so all in all it was a good night!”
The Kingfisher is just one of the stop-offs on the toilet tour the band are undertaking in the run up to the release of their aptly-titled Music For The People album.
“Another mad one was The Stone Roses Bar in York, which is run by this Madchester nut,” Tom resumes. “Legally the capacity’s about 150, but we had at least double that in there. The police very kindly waited until after the gig to start arresting people, which to be fair you can’t blame them for ‘cause there was a bit of drunk and disorderly going on.”
The Kingfisher and The Stone Roses will make way for Heaton Park, Murrayfield, The Millennium Stadium, Wembley and (possibly) Slane Castle in May when The Enemy open for Oasis on the latest leg of their world tour.
“It’s funny, we were quite calm when the news came through, but then as it sunk in we were like, ‘FUCKING HELL!!!!!! WE’RE GOING ON TOUR WITH OASIS!!!’ We’ve all queued up to buy their records and see their gigs, so it’s a huge deal for us.”
Wasting time… sorry, doing essential research the other day I came across a YouTube clip of The Enemy on a roof playing the intro to ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’. As you do.
“God, I didn’t know it was on YouTube. We were shooting the video for ‘It’s Okay’ on top of the Elephant Building in Coventry and to get ourselves in the mood jammed all sorts of stuff. How did we sound?”
Pretty damn good.
“Excellent, I’ll have a look when we’re done here.”
The Oasis tour won’t be the first time that Tom’s indulged in some close-quarters hero worship.
“About a year ago Paul Weller got in touch saying, ‘I want us to do a gig together where I play one of yours and you play one of mine.’ He chose ‘We’ll Live And Die In These Towns’ and I went for ‘That’s Entertainment’, which was about as good as life gets!”
We’ll leave the C.S.I.-style forensic examination of Music For The People until our next issue, but there are two songs on it, ‘Nation Of Checkout Girls’ and ‘Don’t Break The Red Tape’, which chronicle the English Condition every bit as astutely as Weller did in his youth.
“I think it’s a bi-product of singing about your own lives,” their author reflects. “Whilst we might be in a band, we’re everyday lads from everyday places and with things how they are at the moment that resonates with people.”
While Brits are mad for a bit of gritty social realism, The Jam, Suede, Manic Street Preachers and Pulp are testimony to the fact that it doesn’t always register in America.
“I didn’t think they’d get us either, but we went over last year and they really jumped on the band,” Clarke enthuses. “Rather than go ‘It’s not for us’ they’d come up and ask you about the bits of language they didn’t understand. It reminded me of the excitement we got from the fans in the UK at the very beginning.”
A major result given that they nearly had to pull the tour after the first show.
“I managed to slice the top of my finger off at Lollapalooza in Chicago,” Tom winces. “There was blood spurting everywhere, which I’m sure looked very rock ‘n’ roll but hurt like fuck. I’ve sliced my head open before changing guitars, and two of my teeth are ruined from smacking into microphones, so I’m a bit of a disaster area.”
Is there anything that could possibly top supporting Oasis this year?
“Yeah, getting a gig with U2,” comes the instant reply. “They’ve just become this mega undeniable band.”
The ball’s in your court Bono…

The Enemy’s Music For The People album is out on April 24. See them live in The Academy, Dublin (April 17); Cyprus Avenue, Cork (18); Dolan’s, Limerick (19); and the Roisin Dubh, Galway (20).